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Study Confirms Media Has Been Playing Defense for the Democrat Party Throughout the Government Shutdown

Chuck Schumer on the floor of the Senate – Screencap of Twitter/X video.

A new study from the Media Research Center confirms that the news media has been playing defense for the Democrat party throughout the government shutdown.

This will come as no surprise to conservatives, who have known for years now that the media is basically the public relations arm of the Democrat party, but it’s still good to get official confirmation.

One has to wonder if this defense of Democrats may have also played a role in the outcome of this week’s elections.

NewsBusters reports:

STUDY: TV News Spends Shutdown Playing Defense for Democrats

For the past month the big three broadcast networks (ABC, CBS, and NBC) have hammered both Congressional Republicans and President Trump with a wall of negative shutdown coverage, while largely shielding Democrats from blame for the now-historic gridlock.

MRC analysts examined every evening newscast on ABC, CBS, and NBC between October 1 and October 31, 2025. Across the 67 reports and news briefs which discussed the government shutdown, 87 percent of the coverage favored Democrats. Analysts found 83 evaluative statements in which anchors or reporters were critical of Republicans, but just twelve criticizing Democrats.

Summary of Findings

  • Broadcast shutdown coverage heavily favored Democrats over Republicans (87% to 13%).
  • Only 12 reports (less than one fifth) even mentioned that Senate Democrats had refused to vote for a clean continuing resolution.
  • Not a single report mentioned that Democrats voted back in March to end the same Obamacare subsidies which they’re now demanding.

Democrats Routinely Shielded from Blame

Coverage across all three networks was conspicuously vague about how the shutdown even had occurred. There were only 12 instances in which any of the three outlets hinted that Senate Democrats had voted repeatedly against a continuing resolution. On both ABC and CBS, only 12.5 percent of reports on either network mentioned this basic detail. On NBC, that fact was included in just 31 percent of newscasts.

Reports often included lines about the Trump administration “pressuring Democrats,” or soundbites of Republicans demanding Democrats “fund the government,” but usually stopped short of explicitly acknowledging that Senate Democrats were the ones preventing a funding bill from passing.

This is the same playbook the right has been dealing with for decades.

The good news is that more people are aware of this game than ever before, which is why trust for the media is at an all time low.

The post Study Confirms Media Has Been Playing Defense for the Democrat Party Throughout the Government Shutdown appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.